Fire detection devices such as smoke detectors and/or gas detectors are generally employed in structures or machines to monitor the environmental conditions within the living area or occupied compartments of a machine. These devices typically provide an audible or visual warning upon detection of a change in environmental conditions that are generally accepted as a precursor to a fire event.
Typically, smoke detectors include a smoke sensing chamber, exposed to the area of interest. The smoke detector's smoke sensing chamber is coupled to an ASIC or a microprocessor circuit. The smoke sensor samples the qualities of the exposed atmosphere and when a change in the atmosphere of the exposed chamber is detected by the microprocessor, an alarm is sounded.
There are two types of smoke sensors that are in common use: optical or photoelectric type smoke sensors and ionization type smoke sensors. Photoelectric-based detectors are based on sensing light intensity that is scattered from smoke particles. Light from a source (e.g. LED) is scattered and sensed by a photosensor. When the sensor detects a certain level of light intensity, an alarm is triggered.
Ionization-type smoke detectors are typically based on a radioactive material that ionizes some of the molecules in the surrounding gas environment. The current of the ions is measured. If smoke is present, then smoke particles neutralize the ions and the ion current is decreased, triggering an alarm.
The ionization smoke detectors that are currently available in the market are very sensitive to fast flaming fires. This type of fire produces considerable energy and ionized particles, which are easily detected by the sensor.
Although the ionization technology is very inexpensive compared with other technologies and has been installed in millions of homes, there is discussion regarding phasing out of this product category. It has been suggested by some members of the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) that ionization smoke sensors do not readily detect smoldering fires.
Smoldering fires most commonly result from cigarette ignition of materials found in homes such as sofas and beds. A smoldering fire typically produces cold smoke particles of which only a small portion is ionized. Because ionization technology focuses on detection of ionized particles, smoldering fire detection may be inconsistent.
Traditional methods of achieving consistent detection of fast flaming fires, with adequate detection of smoldering fires with ionization type smoke sensors, require the use of ionization type sensors coupled with optical or photoelectric type smoke sensors and/or gas sensors. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,327,247 in which outputs from a plurality of different types of ambient condition sensors are cross-correlated so as to adjust a threshold value for a different, primary, sensor. The cross-correlation processing can be carried out locally in a detector or remotely. To minimize false alarming, the alarm determination may be skipped if the output from the primary sensor does not exhibit at least a predetermined variation from an average value thereof. These combination type systems are complex and therefore rather expensive, but heretofore are typical of the current solutions for consistent detection of flaming and smoldering fires.
Other approaches to achieve adequate detection of fires with low false alarm rates incorporate various filtering methods, which are typically used to prevent false or nuisance alarms. These conventional methods typically are inefficient in that they either unnecessarily delay the detection of a fire event, or they require unnecessarily processing of the signal, which delays fire event detection and significantly increases the system's power consumption. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,928, which is directed to an apparatus and a method to pre-process an output signal from an ambient condition sensor. The preprocessing removes noise pulses which are not correlated with an ambient condition being sensed. The preprocessing is carried out by comparing the present output value to a prior output value and selecting a minimum value there between. The apparatus and methods incorporate storage for two prior values and the present output value is compared to the two prior values. A minimum or a maximum of the three values is selected. Additional processing is typically carried out by comparing the present output value to a nominal expected clear air output value, and if the present value exceeds the nominal expected output value, a minimum is selected among the present output value and one or more prior values. If the present output value is less than the nominally expected value, a maximum is selected from among the present output value and one or more prior output values. This approach is inefficient in that the filtering method used unnecessarily removes relevant signal information and delays the system response to a fire event.
Other systems employ multiple filtering operations. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,612,674, which describes a noise immune detection system having a plurality of detectors that generate respective indicia representative of adjacent ambient conditions. A communications link extends between the detectors. A control element is coupled to the link to receive and process the indicia and to adjust an alarm threshold level in response to noise levels in the system. Respective indicia are filtered twice by the control element. In the presence of noise, as reflected in relative values of the filtered values of the indicia, the threshold value is automatically increased. This approach tends to be inefficient and unnecessarily expends processing resources. The disclosed patent requires computational intensive multiple filtering iterations applied to a previously filtered signal.
A variety of optical gas sensors for detecting the presence of hazardous gases, especially carbon monoxide (“CO”), are also known.
Typically, optical gas sensors include a self-regenerating, chemical sensor reagent impregnated into or coated onto a semi-transparent substrate. The substrate is typically a porous monolithic material, such as silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, aluminosilicates, etc. Upon exposure to a predetermined target gas, the optical characteristics of the sensor change, either darkening or lightening depending on the chemistry of the sensor.
Smoke and gas sensors can be affected by temperature, humidity, and dust particles. One or a combination of these ambient factors can cause a smoke or gas detector to false alarm.
Traditional methods of compensating for ambient environmental factors typically include adjusting the output of the sensors. Such an approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,798,701, which is directed to a self-adjusting, self-diagnostic smoke detector. The detector includes a microprocessor-based alarm control circuit that periodically checks the sensitivity of a smoke sensing element to a smoke level in a spatial region. The alarm control circuit and the smoke sensor are mounted in a discrete housing that operatively couples the smoke sensor to the region. The microprocessor implements a routine stored in memory by periodically determining a floating adjustment that is used to adjust the output of the smoke sensing element and of any sensor electronics to produce an adjusted output for comparison with an alarm threshold. The floating adjustment is not greater than a maximum value or less than a minimum value. Except at power-up or reset, each floating adjustment is within a predetermined slew limit of the immediately preceding floating adjustment. The floating adjustment is updated with the use of averages of selected signal samples taken during data gathering time intervals having a data gathering duration that is long in comparison to the smoldering time of a slow fire. The adjusted output is used for self-diagnosis.
These self adjusting systems are not optimized for the detection of traditional fires as well as smoldering fire events with a single sensor, nor do they employ multiple fire event specific thresholds from which the processor may select.